


Uptempo Shift

by EvilMuffins



Category: Dangan Ronpa, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Dimension Travel, Fix-It, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-27 20:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10816557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/pseuds/EvilMuffins
Summary: “Akamatsu…san? Akamatsu-san!”The girl hesitated, seemingly uncertain whether to ignore him or not, before finally turning, brows furrowed and arms crossed tightly, as if all the world were about to spill away from her. “Yes? …Do I know you?”---Three lost souls, and three realities.(big time spoilers for the entire game!)





	Uptempo Shift

The back of head still hurt sometimes.

Amami rubbed at the area absently as he stared out of the window as if he were expecting the view to shift suddenly, matching the ruined world and red sky he saw each time he closed his eyes. Instead, the sun shone merrily as ever off the late spring dew in his front yard.

Although his bedroom was no longer the way he remembered it- boxes of his parents’ junk, unused presents from relatives, unfinished projects longing for the rainy day that would never come, all teetering on top of bins of his sisters’ old toys- he only ventured from it’s confines on rare occasions.

The look of discomfort on his mother’s face whenever he dared to show his own was something that he wished to avoid as often as possible.

Amami quickly found, however, that making the switch from Adventurer to NEET was a process that took no small amount of adjusting to. At first, he had busied himself fiddling with the bottles of nailpolish that he had found in one of the boxes, the same ones he had often been begged to use on his little sisters. Of course, there were only so many ways he could paint and repaint his nails before the repeated use of the acetone remover would become a bad idea.

“Onii-chan?” Amami tried to ignore the voice at his door, however his middle sister continued, “Dad’s worried about you, you know. He sent me to try and get you to come out of there, and get some fresh air. I know you’re still worried about Machiko, we all are. If you’d like…I can go out searching for her for a change. I’ll take a boat, just like you used to and-”

The door between them creaked open.

* * *

 

Amami’s sisters knew him too well. He heaved a sigh as he turned another corner, this street as eerily familiar as the last, smatterd with businessmen on phones shuffling off to their lunch break, eager dogs being tugged away from rude distractions. His father had probably meant for him to come down and spend time with the family, however Amami had instead walked straight out the front door without a word.

Even if it had only been an empty threat meant to lure him out of his room, Amami still couldn’t bear the thought of another of his sisters meeting with misfortune away from home, especially not in this uncertain world he had found himself in. Although he had soon found that only had Machiko had gone missing, as opposed to the whole lot of them, it still did little to ease his guilt in knowing it was surely his fault. Was this why he had wound up here, in order to set things right?

He hoped that if he wandered around the town for long enough, he would lose track of the time. Instead, he became painfully aware of each of his footsteps keeping time with the passing seconds.

“’scuse me,” a voice muttered, as someone’s shoulder brushed past him on the sidewalk.

Amami hadn’t heard her approach, as lost in thought as he was. “Oh, sorry ‘bout that-“

Suddenly, everything around Amami felt as if he were in one of those dreams, the kind in which he was trying to run towards something- something important, vital- but his legs wouldn’t listen, slogging instead through some unseen mud.

Although only the back of her head faced him now, honey-golden in the late afternoon sun, Amami would know her anywhere.

“Akamatsu…san? Akamatsu-san!”

The girl hesitated, seemingly uncertain whether to simply ignore him or not, before turning, brows furrowed and arms crossed tightly, as if all the world were about to spill away from her. “Yes? …Do I know you?”

“I…” Amami felt the word attempt to emerge from his throat, like some nocturnal creature faced with midday sun. For the first time he could remember, he was at a loss for what to say to a girl. As soon as they had first met at the prison school, he had felt immediately at ease around Kaede, almost as if they had been friends since childhood. Now, after all that had happened- he _knew_ it had happened, there was no way their imprisonment had been nothing but a dream- he had no idea of what to say to her, especially considering her disheartening  reaction to him. “You have a caterpillar on your shoulder... Just wanted to let you know.”

Without another word, and not bothering to brush her sleeve off, Kaede continued on her way, before disappearing into a coffee shop on the corner.

It wasn’t as if Amami hadn’t wondered what had become of the others- he had ample time to in the past week of being home, after all. The fact was, that he had always stopped himself before the late night sessions of wide-awake pensiveness, eyes trained upon the ceiling dust motes, had reached any sort of conclusion.

Amami had been the first to die. Even now, he wished to believe that he had been both the start and conclusion to it all. Perhaps he had been too full of self-importance in hoping above all else that he had somehow been able to end the game through his demise. He had had faith in Kaede, that she had found out and stopped the ringleader.

This was some sort of heaven, or purgatory, wasn’t it? Amami wondered as he turned the corner back to the station, his heart finally daring to sink after walking the past streets in a quagmire of numb disbelief.  Why should Kaede be here, if that were true?

The train ride home was largely spent in a failed attempt at distracting himself by people watching in the sparsely populated car. During a weekday as it was, no one else his own age was on board. That reality show had always been most popular with students around the same age as the contestants, however, just as glances at the window of the 7-11 hadn’t yielded any ads for the cultural phenomenon, none of the people seated around him wore tees sporting the show’s logo. If had been thrust backward in time, before either of his stints on the program, wouldn't there still be vestiges of it around town? It was difficult to forget how ubiquitous it had been.

Amami slid one of his rings up and down between the knuckles of his finger as he thought. Had letting Kaede go been the right thing to do? She hadn’t known him, after all. It was entirely possible, then, that she wasn’t the same Kaede he had known from the game. She had certainly acted much differently than the girl he had grown close with, but that could have been only because her personality reverted back after being freed from the school. In that case, why pretend that she didn’t know him? The look of mistrust on her face when she had turned around, it had felt to Amami as if he fallen inside of a dream, only to be jerked back awake.

“You heard the things he was saying!” A voice belonging to Amami’s mother carried out of the kitchen window, as he approached the front door.

Although he felt a twinge of guilt at listening in, Amami froze before turning the knob. Anything more he could glean about his current situation could be important.

His father’s voice followed, “Anyone would be confused after what’s he’s been through. Who knows how long he was laying out in the sun like that after he washed up. Thank God the search helicopters found him when they did…”

“You never should have let him have the boat in the first place! Who knows what he was doing all that time? Video games, and reality shows… I didn’t even think he was into that crap, and now it’s been all he can talk about since we brought him back from the hospital!"

"I know, I know, but-"

Without bothering to stay for the rest, Amami left the house once again for the station.

In general, he considered himself to be more of a tea person, however something told him that he could go for a nice coffee right now.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry to anyone who was expecting Saihara right away haha.... I promise he's in the next chapter.
> 
> If a canon name comes up for Amami's youngest sister in the future, I'll try to remember to edit it in.


End file.
